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Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Android most targeted by viruses and malware

The Android platform for smartphones and tablets is the most targeted platform by viruses and malware according to a recent study by the FBI which points to fragmentation as a key security weakness of Android.

The Android platform is by far the dominating platform when it comes to smartphones and tablets, currently having 79.3% of the global market. In comparison the Apple iOS platform only has a market share of 13.2% followed by Windows Phone with 3.7%.

The large market share of Android has, not surprisingly, also made it to most targeted platform for the development of viruses, trojans and other kinds of malicious codes, with the rate of new Android threats growing very rapidly. A recent study conducted by the FBI also conclude that the large number of security attacks against Android is also highly dependent on flaws within the Android community, which raises some security concerns.

The results from the study by the FBI show that 79% of attacks against mobile platforms were targeted toward Android. This scales relatively well with the market share of Android. What is worrying, however, is that the Android user base is extremely fragmented with a large number of devices using different Android versions. Certainly, older versions which are no longer supported by Google are dream targets by malware, in a similar way as Windows XP will become once Microsoft stops supporting it.

The fragmentation of the Android market appears to become worse and worse for every year. Google really should invest some effort into consolidating the market which will increase security and in addition make it easier for the users to identify the apps that work for their Android device.

As a comparison, while Android was targeted by malware in 79% of the cases, Apple iOS was only targeted less than 1% of the cases.